Cork singer-songwriter Stephanie Rainey is hoping to wow Simon Cowell and his fellow America's Got Talent judges on Tuesday's live quarter-final show on NBC Television in the US.
In the earlier stages of the competition, Rainey impressed Cowell and his panel with her song Please Don't Go. Tonight, she is looking to secure a place to the show's coveted semi-finals with another original track.
Rainey recently described her place in the AGT quarter-finals as "a life-changer" and said it taught her to "take a bit more of a gamble".
Speaking on The Ray D'Arcy Show on RTÉ Radio 1, she said: "So it kind of gets whittled down from, like, a lot of thousands, I think, to the auditions, people get their 'yeses', and then it goes to the final 44. It's 44 people in total in the quarter-finals, so I'm one of those 44," she told the host.
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— Stephanie Rainey (@stephanierainey) September 1, 2024
"Even getting your 'yes' at the audition doesn't guarantee that you'll make it through to the live shows.
"We had a good feeling that we might get through, but you just don't know until someone says, 'Yeah, you're definitely on the way over'.
"Me and Sarah (Power, piano) have adopted a new thing of, like, until we're on the plane, we're not going! We're traumatised, I think, from years of just ups and downs!"
"For us, it's just another chance to play another song to that many people," Rainey continued.
Rainey will be competing against 44 other acts and there are two ways she can secure her place in the semis - a public vote or a Golden Buzzer.
If she makes it through via the fan vote she'll compete in the semi-finals with 12 other acts for six available spaces in the live final but if she earns herself a Golden Buzzer she'll automatically sail through to the grand final.
"Whatever about the outcome, it's just that amount of exposure is an unreal thing to get to do. We just think of it in terms of songs. We get to do another one, and hopefully, we'll get to do another two after that or another one after that," she said.
"If we get the Golden Buzzer, we'll go straight to the final," Rainey explained. "If we don't get the Golden Buzzer but we get through by public vote, we'll go to the semi-final and then the final hopefully.
"I've always wanted the music to reach more people, and this has been a way of connecting with so many more people. Hopefully, whatever we do next, they find the same level of connection in."
As to how she will handle performing to a live television audience of 10 million, Rainey replied: "I think I'm just going to treat it like a gig."
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